So, reason number 572 why living with a wicked witch sucks? Sometimes it’s a gorgeous summer Saturday, and instead of getting a well-deserved break from Sarmine’s weird witchy chores like dusting the dried newts, you end up as an unpaid babysitter for a party full of little witches.

I set out the plates and forks for the birthday cake while surveying the swimming pool full of witch-kids. From up here they looked like any small children having fun—laughing and splashing and squealing and biting. Except, if you got close enough, you could hear them threatening to turn each other into frogs.

Around me, Witch Sarmine and all her nasty witch friends hovered around the pool like we were the first course at this birthday party. In a way, I suppose we were.

Rated PG.

Tina Connolly is the author of the Ironskin trilogy from Tor, and the Seriously Wicked series from Tor Teen. The newest Seriously novel, Seriously Shifted, releases November first. Her novels have been finalists for the Nebula and the Norton. Her stories have appeared on all Escape Artists podcasts, and are now collected in “On the Eyeball Floor and Other Stories” from Fairwood Press. She co-hosts at Escape Pod, narrates stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Pseudopod, and right here on Podcastle, and you can find her at tinaconnolly.com.

Gina Freeman is a writer, comedian and bioethicist based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Earth, solar system, Milky Way, local group, Virgo supercluster, observable universe, unobservable universe. She loves science and art, and especially when the two collide. She also loves her work, which allows her to think scientifically while dreaming science fictionally. She writes plays for myriad festivals, contributes to a monthly feminist podcast and radio program, runs a weekly writers room, and writes jokes for a local late-night comedy variety talk show. Find her online at ginafreeman.com.

This one didn't really do it for me. I got distracted thinking about how cute my pet rats are. I'm not saying it was bad, mind you. It just wasn't really my jam. I did enjoy the twist that Pink's mom was quite so evil, and I liked the idea of these people looking the age they felt, and all the weird social vicissitudes that birthed. But... eh. I'm sure this is a great YA series for kids (and the young-at-heart) who finds its motifs compelling.

I enjoyed it. I was in the mood for a light-hearted story, and when I saw the title, I knew it would be one. Plus, I've got a daughter who would soon be in the right age range for YA books, so I'm always looking for good books with a strong female lead.

I enjoyed seeing how a 'normal' could work to help all the kids work together to solve the larger problem, while dealing with normal teen / tween anxiety issues.

This was pretty fun. My favorite part was the detail that the witches looked how old they felt, and the ways that was used, especially to explain why the one particular child witch looked several years younger than she actually was because of the schemes of her mother to make her feel incompetent.

This felt like it was targeted to a younger audience than most YA--was this middle-grade, I wonder? I guess it just felt like kind of lower stakes than your typical YA, maybe because it's a short story tie-in to a novel so the stakes might be lower to avoid disrupting the novel's world with major events in a short?